Department
of Economics
2002
Newsletter
Welcome to the third edition of the Oxy Economics Department Newsletter! For those of you who participated last year, welcome back! For those of you who are new, we hope that you'll make the newsletter an annual habit. Where else can you hear about current events in the department, keep up to date with the activities of old classmates, and make new connections with economics majors from other eras?
The big news in the economics department this year is that we ran a nation-wide search for new tenure-track faculty members and were lucky enough to hire our top two choices out of over 300 applicants. To our knowledge, this is a first in departmental history! The two new professors, who will start teaching in August, are Madeline Zavodny and Sita Nataraj. Madeline attended Claremont McKenna as an undergraduate, earned her PhD at MIT, and did research at the Fed for a while before deciding to return to teaching. Sita was a William and Mary undergraduate and currently is finishing up her PhD at Stanford, where she won an award for her excellent teaching.
All but one of the rest of the faculty remains intact from last year, including stalwarts Jim Halstead, Mary Hirschfeld, Robby Moore, Mike Tamada, Jim Whitney, and me and new favorites like Doc Karayan, Jerry McIntyre, Jennifer Olmsted, and Giorgio Secondi. Our only loss was Tim Kane, who is returning to his technology business interests after a year as a visiting professor with us. It was quite a year, though, because Tim managed to run for Congress in the Republican primary (unfortunately in a losing effort) in San Diego while also teaching full time here at Oxy. If the I-5 gave frequent driver miles, Tim would be set for life!
As good a year as it was for the faculty, the students did us one better, as we graduated 57 senior majors (the second-highest total in department history). We once again were the biggest department in the College, and some would say that we were the best as well. We had ten Phi Beta Kappa graduates (one fifth of the College total) including two junior Phi Beta Kappas (out of eleven for the College) and we set a departmental record as nine seniors earned College honors in our department at graduation. What a class!
It also was an excellent year for outside speakers in our department, as three different nationally known economists/economic policy-makers (all with connections to Oxy) made campus presentations. First, Kathy Shaw, Oxy '76 and a Professor at Carnegie Mellon, spoke about her years in the West Wing as a member of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors. Then Ed Leamer, parent of current junior Mike Leamer and a Professor at UCLA, reviewed the economy from his viewpoint as the head of the UCLA Business Forecast. Finally, Dennis Patrick, Oxy '73, gave us a refreshingly candid perspective on his time as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
Well, that wraps up our year. If you're in the area, please stop by and say hello. The campus is beautiful!
Otherwise, please feel free to drop me a line at <woody@oxy.edu> or give me a call at 323-259-2776. I'm always excited to hear from our alums.
Woody Studenmund
W(h)ither Globalization?
by Jim Whitney*
Going back in time even further, when I was a college undergraduate in the early 1970s, the jury was still out on whether import-substitution industrialization (ISI) or export-led industrialization (ELI) was the quicker path to prosperity. The verdict has since come in, and evidence across the board suggests that outward-looking countries have trounced inward-looking countries in the pace of their economic growth and development.
The early returns came in from East Asia, where the performance of the "Four Tigers" (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) catapulted them to the ranks of the high-income countries and helped convince Mikhail Gorbachev that the ideological Cold War was over. The “Asian Miracle” may have been a miracle, but it is no longer strictly Asian. In South America, Chile began reducing its 105 percent average tariff rate in the late 1970s. It has since bound itself under the WTO to a maximum average tariff rate of 25 percent and then unilaterally progressed even further, cutting its tariffs to a uniform level of 9 percent in 2001 and setting a target of 6 percent for 2003. Since 1980, Chile has been South America's fastest growing economy, with its output per capita increasing more than twice as fast as any other country on the continent. In Europe, the story is similar for Ireland. Consulting firm A.T. Kearney constructs a Globalization Index for 62 countries accounting for over 80 percent of the world's population.1 Ireland currently tops the list, and the country is the fastest growing economy in the European Union and in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). A recent OECD report has forecast that Ireland will also have the highest rate of employment growth in the industrialized world over the coming years.
The increasing income gap between the "have" and "have not" countries divides not according to rich versus poor, but rather according to "have" versus "have not" globalized. Among the 54 of A.T. Kearney’s 62 sample countries with available data, average per capita output has grown 11% slower since 1980 for the richer half of the sample countries than for the poorer half. But average per capita output has grown 38% faster over the same period of time for the more globalized half of the sample than for the less globalized half. In a more systematic and comprehensive analysis of 93 countries reported in the March 1998 issue of the Economic Journal, UCLA and National Bureau of Economics Research economist Sebastian Edwards concluded that "more open economies have indeed experienced faster productivity growth."
Few trade economists are surprised by these results. Gains from trade according to Ricardo's "comparative advantage" remains one of the most fundamental and, unfortunately, most misunderstood principles of economics.2 Trade also promotes efficiency by serving as a costless antitrust policy, exposing domestic monopolies and oligopolies to foreign competition. In industries where economies of scale are important, such as appliances at the national level and aircraft at the international level, trade can lower costs by expanding the size of the market for producers. And trade not only helps poorer countries catch up with their richer trade partners, it also helps all trading countries grow faster by accelerating the diffusion of new technology and increasing potential sales and profitability for new inventions.
So why all the controversy about globalization? It pays to start by checking sources. In Brazil, for example, Luiz Inacio da Silva, Brazil's Labor Party presidential candidate has surged to the top of the polls as a prominent globalization critic. But despite some recent developments, Brazil remains a globalization laggard, not a leader. It ranks 58th out of 62 countries in A.T. Kearney’s Globalization Index survey. Brazil relies proportionately less on trade than the U.S., despite its smaller population and more limited capacity for self-reliance. To at least some extent, globalization serves as a convenient scapegoat for more deep-seated domestic problems.
More troublesome is the sort of evidence cited by Marc Edelman in his March 22, 2002, editorial in the Los Angeles Times, "Price of Free Trade: Famine":
Bush's proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement is hardly going to remedy the worsening disaster in rural Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. Unregulated markets are a large part of the reason why 700,000 Central Americans face starvation and nearly 1 million more suffer serious food shortages. Hardest hit are coffee plantation workers and maize farmers.... Since 1992, Central America has had intra-regional free trade in grains and almost no tariff protection against low-cost imports.... Many Central American farmers have abandoned food production, gone bankrupt and lost their land.
Ironically, for all four of the countries cited by Edelman—Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua—per capita output actually rose faster in the eight years following the implementation of Central America's 1992 trade agreement than in the eight years prior to the agreement. However, Edelman's commentary does highlight the soft underbelly of globalization: economic integration can have very powerful income redistribution effects within a country.
A nation's globalization increases the size of its economic pie, but each piece does not automatically get bigger. Some of the negative effects involve transition problems, as is likely the case for Central America, with temporary but nonetheless painful impacts on producers in import-competing sectors as those sectors contract while export sectors expand. Other effects persist indefinitely, such as an adverse impact on wages of unskilled workers in industrial countries as the workers compete with lower-paid unskilled workers in lesser-developed countries. According to Harvard economist Dani Rodrik, every $1 of increased income from trade is accompanied by $5 of income redistribution. And Harvard economist George Borjas has estimated that the immigration of unskilled labor into the U.S. in the 1990s raised the nation's annual output by $7 billion, but also redistributed ten times that amount, $70 billion, from native unskilled workers to skilled U.S. workers and capital owners.
It is, however, possible to pursue globalization while simultaneously addressing these sorts of adverse consequences. For example, gradualism allows time for workers in import-competing industries to retrain or retire, and nearly all trade liberalization agreements allow phase-in periods of five-to-ten years, with even longer periods typically permitted for lesser-developed countries. In addition, Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) can directly finance retraining and relocation costs to help trade-impacted workers. Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey Schott of the International Institute of Economics have criticized the past underfunding of TAA in the U.S., but its prospects appear to be brightening with pending legislation to triple its budget from $400 million to $1.2 billion annually, provide a 70% government subsidy to help workers pay for continued health-care coverage, and offer a pilot wage insurance scheme in which the federal government would pay older workers who move to new, lower paying, jobs up to $5,000 of the difference between their old and new wages.
Some recent U.S. policy changes illustrate instead the alternative approach of reversing the progress toward globalization. Last March, President Bush announced a three-year program of tariffs ranging up to 30% on selected steel imports. And in May, the President signed a new farm bill that will increase government spending on agriculture by 80%—an additional $82 billion over ten years. The bill restores subsidies discontinued by the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act and, for the country’s biggest crops (soybeans, corn and wheat), it introduces new trade-distorting payments linked to prices and production.
It is worthwhile to keep this recent backsliding in context. The Administration attempted to tailor its steel tariffs to provisions of the WTO’s Safeguard Agreement, which provides for temporary relief from adverse effects of import surges, and a WTO Dispute Settlement panel is currently investigating the justifiability of the tariffs. And with respect to farm subsidies, Congressional staffers claim that they have taken great care to stay within the total support ceiling pledged to the WTO by the U.S. ($19.1 billion for the current year), and the farm bill contains a clause that allows the agriculture secretary to cut subsidies if the ceiling is exceeded.
Despite its recent reversals, the U.S. remains a globalization leader, at least so far. The European Union’s agricultural subsidy ceilings under the WTO amount to 69 billion euros for the current year, over three times higher than the ceiling pledged by the U.S. And a recent IMF study found that, overall, U.S. markets are so open to Third World imports that every one percent of American economic growth is associated with a one percent increase in Third World growth. By comparison, European and Japanese markets are so closed that their growth has no "statistically significant effect" on Third World growth. But the leadership position of the U.S. comes with leadership responsibilities. When most other countries resist globalization, the resulting costs are largely self-contained. But when the U.S. does so, the costs ripple abroad. More importantly, U.S. backsliding makes it more difficult for policy makers in other countries to justify and sustain their own globalization efforts. After all, if the most prosperous and ardent supporter of free trade reverses course, how can poorer countries be expected to stay on track?
Many critics now acknowledge that they are resigned to globalization and seek not to defeat it but to soften its sharp edges. But freer trade offers the closest thing in economics to a free lunch. Countries should not simply resign themselves to globalization, they should pursue it. Chile continues to bang on the door for entry into NAFTA. Mexico has followed up NAFTA by signing free trade agreements with several of its neighboring countries and with the European Union. Other countries should take similar steps. And then, as the critics of globalization suggest, policy makers should soften its sharp edges.
* Jim Whitney is Professor of Economics at Occidental College.
Notes
1. According
to A.T. Kearney/Foreign Policy magazine: The Globalization Index is a unique
ranking of economic, political, technological, and social integration in 62
countries, representing four fifths of the world population and more than 95
percent of the world’s economic output.
2. "Comparative advantage" was the response offered by Nobel economist Paul Samuelson when he was once asked to name an economic principle that was simultaneously important, universally accepted by economists and widely misunderstood by the general population.
Last year was Jim Halstead's second year in the College's Early Retirement Incentive Program. Under this program, professors teach reduced workloads with a proportionately smaller reduction in salary. He will continue to teach his favorite classes: Principles of Economics I, Environmental Economics and Policy and the History of Economic Thought. Jim continues his work as Director of Academic Advising for the College, and last year he served with Jim Whitney on the College's Subcommittee on Finance and on the Ad Hoc Committee for Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness. This was another slow year for brewpub touring, but nonetheless, Jim's total reached 400 at mid-summer. Most late Friday afternoons and early Friday evenings, Jim can be found sitting in the "post" position at Crown City Brewery; his promise to buy you a beer if you stop by to see him at the Crown remains in place.
Mary Hirschfeld has been further developing her Senior Seminar, which explores the philosophical underpinnings of Economics. While this sounds a bit obscure, the class is actually a lot of fun—a chance to think about what it really means to be rational, and what the point of all that constrained maximization really is. In addition, she has begun discussions with faculty in the Philosophy and Politics departments about the possibilities of establishing a new major in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. In more fun news, Mary continues to spend her free time tracking down her 3 wacky cats and her 1 completely crazed dog. And after 14 long years, she finally got a couch in her new office!
Last Fall John Karayan's ECON 233 class finally got him to admit that his nickname—Doc—resulted from his childhood likeness to a Disney cartoon character. This past year was an exciting one for Doc, with Enron and Andersen providing spice to the life of accounting and financial analysis. Along with presenting papers on the impact of students' diverse cognitive styles on teaching accounting, he published a text last September, and has another book—on tax planning for managers—coming out this August. More importantly, his son graduated from high school, his daughter got her driver's license, and he and his bride of 30 years celebrated his 50th birthday at Eagle Rock's jewel, Cafe Beaujolais. It was a good year, even if he ended it looking even more like Doc.
Jerry McIntyre had a blast his first year at Occidental College after teaching for several years at Vassar College and the University of California, Santa Cruz. During the year Jerry wrote a book on teaching Principles of Economics which was fun to write and generated positive externalities by greatly improving his typing skills—1200 pages of text in six months demands a great number of key strokes in a short period of time. After commuting from Santa Monica from August to May, this summer he wandered more widely visiting Santa Cruz, San Francisco, New York, and Washington D.C. In addition, this summer he finished the final editing of the book while also doing economic research on economic growth and international economics. He also developed two new courses for the fall; the first is a section of the senior seminar on international macroeconomic theory and policy. The second is Economics 353, Global Financial Economics, which covers topics in international financial economics. He is looking forward to seeing everyone in late August and is primed and ready to do some econ.
Robby Moore spent much of the 2001-02 academic year brooding over the state of the College in his role as Faculty Council President. He also continued his work in Economic Education, and his short invited article, "An Active Learning Review Session," was published in Volume 1, Issue 3 of the McGraw-Hill Higher Education Teaching Economics Exchange. He also co-organized and led an American Economics Association sponsored regional Teaching Workshop on Active Learning for Southern California teaching economists and spent three days in October visiting and advising the Economics Department at Trinity College (Conn.) He is currently co-authoring an article on "The What, Why, How, and For Whom of Regional Teaching Workshops," and is continuing his research on stock options.
Jennifer Olmsted just completed her second year as a visiting professor at Occidental college. During this past year in addition to sections of principles, she taught a senior seminar on race and gender in a global economy, as well as teaching in core, with English professor Dan Fineman. They developed a course titled Culture and Economics that involved studying how economic issues are portrayed in literature. This summer she was busy organizing the annual International Association for Feminist Economics summer conference, which took place right here on Oxy's campus in July 2002! She is also busy this summer editing a book and continuing her research on various aspects of Middle East economics, with the help of a grant she recently received from the Economic Development Fund. She recently had an article published in Industrial Relations and has a number of other forthcoming publications. In the fall she will be teaching Gender and Economics, as well as two sections of principles. In the spring she will be teaching the Political Economy of the Middle East and a women's studies course titled Gender and Globalization.
Giorgio Secondi was on sabbatical leave in the fall of 2001, so he spent most of his summer and fall focusing on his research and traveling to several conferences. In July he presented a new paper ("Intergenerational Transfers and Their Motivation: Evidence from China") at the Annual Meeting of the Western Economic Association International in San Francisco; in August he traveled to Vancouver for a conference on "teaching with case studies"; and in October he was off to Washington, D.C., for the inter-institutional meeting of the Washington Semester program (he's now become the advisor to this program). In the spring he taught analytical foundations and economic development. This was his fourth year at Oxy, so he was proud to see the students in "his class" (those who started at Oxy at the same time as he did, including 15 of his advisees) graduate in May. Giorgio served again as Faculty Associate for Newcomb Hall, became the advisor to the newly created ping pong club, and helped the crew club resume its activities (the club is now rowing out of the LMU boathouse in Marina del Rey).
Woody Studenmund continues to serve as department chair and continues to love teaching his econometrics and managerial economics courses. His two major non-teaching activities this year were to chair the department's highly successful faculty search committee and to chair Oxy's Planning and Budget Committee (in his role as Director of Institutional Planning). This latter responsibility became virtually full-time when Woody was asked to head up the operational side of Occidental's new strategic planning effort. This 18-month process, which we're calling "Dynamic Planning," started off with surveys of all the major College constituencies (in which many of you participated), and has now moved on to the generation and analysis of possible "Strategic Priorities" by which to help guide the College's future fund raising efforts and to assist future Oxy administrative and curricular decision-making.
Mike Tamada continued as the Director of Institutional Research. Projects included analysis of students' choices of majors, helping with assessment of the success of Oxy's diversity efforts, and using panel data to study the relationship between schools' graduation rates and admit rates (percent of applicants admitted). Mike usually teaches one class per year. He continues to advise the men's Ultimate Frisbee Club and for four of the past five years has traveled to Potlatch, a large coed Ultimate tournament, to play with the Oxy reunion team. He was awarded a fellowship to travel to China in the Fall of 2002—to play Ultimate!
Jim Whitney turned in another year of instruction in Intermediate Microeconomics and International Economics. Borrowing from Robby, he incorporated a Cooperative Learning Lab into Intermediate Micro, and students responded very well to it. It was a rebuilding year for International Econ, with a greater emphasis on applications, current policies and case studies. The approach turned out to be a "try everything and see what floats year," with mixed results, and the plan now is to try to keep the floaters for next year. Jim finished his term of service as Chair of the faculty's Subcommittee on Finance (SCOF) and will take up duties on the Advisory Council next year. In the Fall, Jim and Linda's daughter, Cami, will start her own college experience, at Smith College in Massachusetts.
Please
click on the class year you are interested in or scroll down the page to
look at all of them.
Note:
Names
in blue
are clickable and linked to e-mail addresses or personal web pages. Names in purple
are not clickable (contact Giorgio
Secondi if you wish to get in touch with these alums).
| 1955 | 1961 | 1962 | 1967 |
| 1968 | 1970 | 1973 | 1976 |
| 1979 | 1980 | 1982 | 1985 |
| 1986 | 1987 | 1989 | 1990 |
| 1991 | 1992 | 1997 | 1998 |
| 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 |
Following an IBM
management and executive career of 36 years and several years as President and
CEO of Metaphor, Inc. (a software and services company in Silicon Valley) Cathie
Young Selleck is semi-retired. She continues to be involved in the
business world as a management consultant and a Director of the Philadelphia-based international career transition and human resources consulting firm, Right
Management Consultants. She particularly enjoys her continuing association with
Occidental College as a member of the Board of Trustees.
Russ Barber continues to hold the position of Associate Dean on the Macon campus of the School of Business and Economics of Mercer University, Macon, Georgia. He plans to work two more years, and then retire. His wife, Carolyn, says she will completely retire from the part-time teaching and substituting she has been doing since she retired from teaching 6th grade three years ago. Russ continues to drive the 1973 Porsche 914 which he bought new in 1973 and had restored in 2000. He hopes it will last as long as he wants to drive. His other interests are a part-time CPA tax practice, and being chair of the $7 million building and restoration program at his church.
Jim
Reimers has retired from programming and started a new career
speculating in futures contracts for commodities—like wheat,
silver, and coffee—and stock indices
like the S&P 500. After 2+ years of a bear market, he wanted an investment
vehicle that worked as well in down markets as up markets (wouldn't we all!). So
far Jim claims he is net positive. He would be interested in conversing with
other Econ/Business Majors who are interested in futures.
Dave
Berkus is a venture capitalist, managing Berkus Technology
Ventures, LLC and Kodiak Ventures, L.P., both aimed at early stage technologies
in Southern California. He is presently Chairman of five of his portfolio
companies and of the Tech Coast Angels, one of the country's largest angel
networks. Dave was named "Director of the Year" for early stage
businesses by the Orange County Forum for Corporate Directors in 2000,
"Businessperson of the Year" by Occidental Business Associates in
2001, and received Oxy's Alumni Seal Award for achievements in business and
commerce in 2000.
Jim
Dunlap has been on the move since last year. In August 2001 he moved
from La Paz, Bolivia to Lima, Peru. Finally, for the first time since Oxy years,
he is close to the beach and able to surf all the time. Does anyone still have
one of those Oxy Surf Team t-shirts made up in the 60s? Or able to find pictures
from the day the team and surfboards were launched in the main entrance drive
fountain? Peru is a much bigger economy that Bolivia's was, but the development
problems are similar—just
bigger. Lima alone has the population of all of Bolivia. USAID has been in Peru
for 40 years. Isn't that terribly discouraging!? As Jim closes in on 20 years
with USAID he is concluding that much of it comes down to bad governance.
Country leaders at every level from Presidents to village leaders that do the
wrong things for the wrong reasons, and steal as much as they can while doing
it. He is once again responsible for Ecuador, where he worked from 1987-1992.
The country is worse off now than it was then. Maybe it's a good thing his job
pays a salary as opposed to payment based on results. Certainly the Millennium
Challenge Account's focus on government is well-placed. He hopes the politics of
its implementation don't totally defeat the intended purpose.
Class
of 1968
Paul
Basile continues to practice law in Brentwood (West Los Angeles) and
Pasadena. His practice continues to focus on closely-held and family-owned
businesses and on estate planning and tax matters. Paul lectures frequently on
various tax and business succession issues to both professional and business
groups, both locally and nationally. He was recently appointed by the American
Bar Association Section of Taxation to a joint commission with the Internal
Revenue Service to study the issue of tax shelter abuse by small businesses.
(Give him a few months and he will be able to advise you how to avoid problems
with the IRS if you want to shelter your income.)
Paul is about to celebrate the 25th anniversary
of his marriage to Diane Chierichetti. Their 18-year-old son, Christopher, will
be a senior at Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood this Fall. So, Diane,
Paul and Christopher have undertaken the obligatory college tours this Summer
(instead of a vacation to Italy, which all of them would prefer). They visited the Midwest during the first part of the summer and will be in the Northeast at
the end of August. (At least, they will get a weekend in New York and another in
Boston on that trip.) Even with the tours to places far away from home, Oxy is
on Christopher's list of possible schools. Surprisingly, even though Paul lives
in Sherman Oaks and has been very active in support of Oxy since graduating
(including serving a 5-year term as an Alumni Trustee), Christopher has never
been to Oxy. Paul promises to fix that by this Fall.
Wally Frank enjoyed sharing fond memories of Oxy with several classmates and other alums while thanking them for their support of the Alumni Fund in an economically challenging year. The highpoint though was his son's report upon completion of his freshman year that attending Oxy was the best decision he'd ever made.
Robin Smith
and family (Lynne, w/twins Chris and Lauren)
have been living in beautiful Mill Valley, California enjoying all the benefits
of a small town and lots of outdoor recreation. After 20 years in the sporting
goods industry in senior positions with firms like Cutter, Avia and Mizuno, he
took a major step into the dot com world 5 years ago. As an early pioneer at
Fogdog.com, he helped build the strategy, develop alliances and take the company
public. The company was sold a year and a
half ago. Robin is currently a Partner in 2 sports consulting companies:
SportsOneSource,llc and SportVentures,llc. He and his wife are finding
out what the teenage years are all about, but wouldn't change it for anything in
the world. "It all passes so quickly."
Reed
Johnson recently was appointed RTI Fellow at
Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina in addition to his appointment as
Principal Economist in health and environmental economics. This theoretically
means he now has time for reflection and pursuit of interesting, abstract, and
completely impractical research ideas. Somehow it hasn't worked out that way.
All those urgent, practical problems keep getting in the way.
Don
van Deventer continues as president and chief executive officer of risk
management software firm Kamakura
Corporation. He's been very involved in
projects from Germany to Australia but was able to return to Japan for the first
time in four years to serve as adjunct professor at Hitotsubashi University's
Graduate School of International Strategy. Don was named an interim director of
the Global Association of Risk Professionals and the Japanese Association of
Financial Econometrics and Engineering early this year, but he's proudest of
finishing the Haliewa Metric Century bike race in April at age 51. Don and his
wife Stella (Jin-sa) and daughter Ella (6) have been making annual visits to
Stella's parents in Shanghai, where Don has seen visible proof that markets work—a booming city!
The last academic year Richard P.F. Holt published with his co-editor Steve Pressman A New Guide to Post Keynesian Economics (Routledge, 2001). At present he's working on a new book with David Colander and Barkley Rosser, Jr. on cutting edge work in economics. Some of the economists that will be covered in the book are Rob Axtell, Herb Gintis, Bob Frank, Dick Norgaard, Brock, Deirdre McCloskey, Duncan Foley, Matt Rabin, Peyton Young, and Ken Binmore. It is argued in the book that significant cutting edge work is being done today in economics with game theory, evolutionary economics, psychology and economics and normative preferences, etc. This type of work is slowly changing the theoretical base of mainstream economics.
The
Department of Economics and the entire Occidental community were shocked and
saddened by the tragic death of Greg Davis, Oxy '05, in an automobile accident
in January. Greg was the son of Pete Davis '76. A freshman at Oxy, Greg
was well-liked on campus and was scheduled to be the starting shortstop on the
baseball team. We in the department trust that all Oxy economics majors will
join us in extending our most sincere condolences to Pete and his family.
Paul Bogel has been in the Seattle area since 1984. Currently, he is the First Vice President and Northwest Region Manager for Washington Mutual Bank's Residential Construction Division. Thanks to cheap interest rates and Microsoft, the housing market continues to roll along keeping him busy. When not traveling, Paul is moderately successful keeping up with his two sons, ages 8 and 2, along with wife Dana (Foote), Class of '82. Life's good—come visit!
Gail
(Schulman) Ginell is a free-lance accountant with 19 years in the field. She
works for a couple of local accounting firms and handles her own clients and the
accounting work for her husband's two businesses. The businesses are Sound
Thinking Music Research, a music licensing and research firm, and Origin Jazz
Library, a record company. She has been married to Cary for almost 12 years and
they have two sons, Brian (9) and Adam (7). The family lives in Thousand Oaks,
Calif. Gail keeps busy with her kids in their various activities as well as her
many volunteer roles, including PFA treasurer, School Site Council, team mom,
and board member of her temple in the position of vice president over the temple
preschool. Gail also serves as the alumni editor for the Oxy magazine.
Linda
Bradford Raschke has been a full time professional trader in equities and
futures for the past 21 years. She traded as a floor trader in the 80's and
became a registered CTA in the 90's, managing several hedge funds. She has been
on the board of directors for the Market Technicians Association for many years,
and has spoken on technical analysis in over 30 countries. In 1996, she authored
one of the record selling financial books, Street Smarts: High Probability
Short-term Trading Patterns. Linda is an authority on quantifying price
behavior and behavioral finance. She was written up as one of the country's top
traders in Jack Schwager's popular book, New Market Wizards. Linda runs
her own business in West Palm Beach, and lives with her daughter, Erika.
Class
of 1982
Tony Kwee
is Director, Corporate Finance for Solectron Corporation. He is responsible for
all of the company's banking and leasing activities and is involved in public
capital raising activities. The current economic downturn has had a dramatic,
negative impact on Solectron and the Electronic Manufacturing Services industry.
Consequently, the company has been actively involved in downsizing of
manufacturing operations and transitioning operations to lower cost, offshore
regions. Much of Tony's activities have centered on the recapitalization of
Solectron's balance sheet via a combination of debt and equity-linked products.
Tony resides in San Mateo, California, is married to Judy (a probate attorney),
and together they have three children—Erika
(12), Nichole (9), and Travis (6).
Liz
(Coit) Georgakopoulos became President and Director of the Conseco
Insurance Group (CIG) in January, 2002. CIG is one the largest life insurance
companies in the U.S. primarily serving middle-America's financial and health
planning needs. Liz, and her bankruptcy and securities expert husband Nicholas,
are enjoying her new position!
Since the last newsletter Grey Staples
has moved with his family to Minneapolis, MN to take a strategy
job with Xcel Energy (multi-state electric utility holding company). They miss
CA but are quickly adapting to the change in weather and scenery. He says,
"Man, I hope other people provide their updates so I'm not hanging out here
alone..."
Having worked for four years for
the National Economic Institute, the last three in charge of the official
economic forecast for the Icelandic economy, Kata
Ólafsdóttir was forced to change jobs this year, as
the National Economic Institute was closed at the end of June 2002. The last
year was a stressful one as she served as the employee representative in dealing
with the government in ensuring the rights of employees were honored as the
institute was closing down. But now Kata has entered the banking world and works
as an economic analyst for the largest commercial bank in Iceland.
Marc
Monasch is
still with JPMorgan in investment banking. He's moved out of M&A execution
into client coverage and is primarily responsible for major European
conglomerates and engineering firms, as well as for European airlines and
airline services companies. He travels several days a week into Europe, which is
lots of fun, but makes it difficult to spend a lot of time with his two little
kids Max and Vivienne. He will spend summer vacation in the San Diego area, to
get away from the rain in London.
Benson Choy, in addition to pursuing an Acting Career in Film and Television, is now also working at the NASD, Dispute Resolution Division.
Susan Fitzgerald is
a Senior Vice President for Moody's Investors Service. At Moody's, she analyzes
the credit quality of higher education and other not-for-profit borrowers. While
technically based out of Moody's New York office, she recently moved to
Albuquerque and now telecommutes, enjoying the wonderful change in quality of
life that technology can bring!
Class
of 1991
Kurt
Johnson continues to be employed by IndyMac Bank, a large nationwide
mortgage lender. He is starting his third year, which is a record among past
employers. He married Tara Chandler in November. Dan Givens (Oxy Econ alum) was
the best man, and other Oxy alums attending were Carolyn Smith (econ) Scott
& Anh-Luu Hohnbaum ('91 & '95), Jesse and Amy (Atlas) Johnson ('92 &
'91), Christine (Evans) Arenal, Candice Frembling, Katie Luce
and Jacquie Rebideau.
Kurt and Tara are in the process of buying their first house in San Gabriel.
Additionally, Kurt was recently selected to serve on Oxy's Board of Governors
and continues to be active in Occidental activities.
Class
of 1992
Robert
Baraga is a Financial Consultant in the Downtown Los Angeles Office of
Salomon Smith Barney. He focuses on servicing the retirement plan needs of
businesses of all types and sizes across the country. Robert lives in Altadena,
CA with his wife Heather (Hoskins) Baraga '92, his three-year-old daughter Johanna,
and his son Benjamin James, who was born on June 24, 2002.
Yady Guardado
is
still at Oxy but she just moved to a new position where she'll be
using her new MBA skills to work and maintain Oxy's technology renewal budget
(in addition to other things, of course!)
Kevin
Holliday writes that he left his job at Oracle this summer after nearly
five years. Last Spring he was accepted at UCLA' School of Public
Policy and Social Research where he will be attending this Fall. He will be
working toward an MA in Urban Planning. Kevin's long term goal is to
be a transportation consultant.
Last February, Kevin enjoyed a very relaxing
trip to French Polynesia where he spent time in Tahiti and Bora Bora. (He highly
recommends you see the islands for yourself!) This coming December he has plans
to visit friends in Australia over his winter break from school.
Kevin still lives just below the Sunset Strip
in West Hollywood and sees fellow Econ Alums Lisa Yang and Danny Klink
often.
Danny Klink continues to work for Deloitte & Touche LLP as a Senior Accountant in the Assurance and Advisory Services Group. He has been with the firm since he received his Masters of Accounting Degree in the Spring of 1998 from USC. He lives with Brad Turek '96 and two other roommates in a place in Manhattan Beach, which only occasionally resembles a fraternity house.
Melissa Ronac is currently living in London and working at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She is working in the Valuation & Strategy group. Christina Ronac will be attending the MBA curriculum at Columbia University this autumn.
Claudia (Inman) Wilderman is attending the MBA program at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She will be graduating in May 2003.
Lisa
Yang
reports that they just had their 5-year class
reunion (June 2002). Sorry to have missed those of you who couldn't make it! In
attendance were the following Class of '97 Econ alums: Kevin Holliday, Meredith
Kildow, Daniel Klink, Christina Ronac, and me. Lisa hopes to see more of us at
the next reunion—in 2007!!
Pieternel Barel is currently working as a summer intern with the United Nations Development Program and the Ministry of Public Health in Ecuador to conduct an assessment of Ecuador's nutrition program. In September she will return to finish the second year of a master's in public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.
After telecommuting for nearly
2 years, Keegan
McNamara has re-entered the
"real" world and is currently working as a consultant for a land
planning/engineering firm as well as doing part-time work for a San Diego land
developer.
Since January, Matt Beving has been working as an Account Exec. at Beneficial Finance. He's in financial sales, which is surely a change of pace from consulting. It can be quite rewarding, and quite frustrating. He's looking to get back into consulting, or move forward in sales and become a mortgage broker. Or, maybe go back to school. Or...... Anyway, he caught up with Brendon Friesen & Mike Hellerslien at Dave Newhall's wedding and often keeps in touch with Scott Hannah via email. Mike and Scott both seem to be happy with work while Brendon is about to finish his 3rd year of law school.
This April
Jon Lanning
successfully completed the first year of the University of Michigan's Ph.D.
program in Economics. After passing the preliminary examination in
Microeconomics, he has been spending his summer researching the determinants of
test score differences among children. Next fall he will resume coursework
focusing on the fields of Labor Economics, Economic History, and Public Finance,
and will begin teaching an undergraduate Game Theory course.
Dan Davis spent his first six months following graduation on a farm on the South Island of New Zealand before moving back to the SF Bay Area. He has just finished his first year as an Account Executive at Fisher Investments, a Bay Area Money Management firm. He will soon be living with a couple other firm employees (including Doug Regner '02) on the Peninsula just south of San Francisco and so far he's thoroughly enjoying both career and life.
Katie Holford completed graduate school in May 2002, receiving her MBA as well as an MS in Human Resources from the Peter F. Drucker School of Business in Claremont. She was selected as a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, an honor society for collegiate schools of business. Additionally, Katie was fortunate to take classes with Peter Drucker himself, who is still teaching at the age of 94!
Matt Mihm has joined the Los Angeles Teaching Fellows program, which places new teachers into low-scoring and under-resourced schools in the LAUSD. Matt owns a house in Highland Park and lives with 5 other Oxy alumni.
Hello to everyone!!! Charlotte Rich is currently living in Denver, Colorado, where she is enjoying the beautiful scenery. She had a fun winter on the ski slopes and is spending the summer climbing mountains. She works part-time for Denver SCORES, a non-profit after-school program. This fall, Charlotte is taking the LSAT and applying to law school, where she plans to study child advocacy law. Please let her know if you are traveling to Colorado!
Jennifer Sakurada is now working for Comerica Bank as a Credit Specialist in the Entertainment Group, lending production loans for new films. The clients she works with include indie film companies such as Franchise Pictures, Myriad Pictures, Unified Film Organization (UFO), Promark Entertainment and Icon Entertainment. She is also taking additional accounting classes at UCLA Extension for this new position. A few months ago she moved to Hollywood, near the Hollywood Hills and continues to work in Beverly Hills.
Fernando H. Shahbaznia moved in September of 2001 to work at Landmark College in Putney, Vermont. He initially began his work for the College as Director of Alumni Relations & Annual Giving. In March of this year he was asked to take on the role of Associate Vice President for Institutional Advancement. During his free time you will find him riding his road bike throughout the rolling hills of the Green Mountain State.
Robin Strauss is currently working in the accounting department at HSI Productions and will begin studying for her Masters in Communications Management at USC's Annenberg School in August.
Ha Thai recently left her Public Relations position with Burson-Marsteller in San Francisco and joined UBS PaineWebber in San Jose as a Financial Advisor. She lives in the East Bay with her boyfriend and commutes to LA on a regular basis to visit family and friends.
After two years working for the Make-A-Wish Foundation as a wish coordinator and working with former Oxy administrator Bart Verry, Caroline van Oosterom has decided to go back and school and is starting her first year at Loyola Law School.
Stephen
Vitalich was relieved to be a part of the
transaction that sent Arthur Andersen professionals in the Pacific Northwest
area to KPMG. He passed the Washington State CPA exam in November '01.
Over the past year Mario Aguilar has been building a successful financial consulting career with Woodbury Financial Services located in Diamond Bar, CA. Following graduation Mario moved to Pasadena and currently lives with Edward Gorton '01. The past year has been a great learning experience, and Mario looks forward to crossing paths with other Oxy Econ Alums in the near future.
José Arzate is currently working for Hispanics In Philanthropy as a Program Coordinator. Working hard on mastering the infamous GMAT. He plans to apply to bschool this fall. Hoping to attend the GSB at UChicago to be with his PSO (prospective significant other) who's in the third year of his MD/MBA. Working hard to establish Occidental GALA (gay and lesbian alumni). If anyone is interested in helping, please email him at josea2@aol.com.
After graduating, Charlene Colby took some time to travel and enjoy her time away from studying. She visited Spain and Greece in June 2001. She then spent January and February 2002 on the Caribbean island Tobago. She is currently working for The Elizabeth Hospice as a Volunteer Coordinator and living in San Diego.
Kristy Felker is living in Pleasant Hill and is teaching 6th grade core—Reading, English and Social Studies. She will be completing her courses for her teaching credential this winter. Although she is enjoying working with middle school kids, she plans on teaching high school economics and government after she gets her credential.
Osman Khan is working in the bay area and just recently bought a condo right by work....... he eagerly awaits mortgage shock.
Jas Lee is currently working for a non-profit hearing and speech center in Eugene, OR. while preparing to return to Los Angeles in the fall of 2003 to start a master's program. With all the "free" time she has, she is taking sign-language classes, assisting in a DMV class in Spanish, and spending a lot of time at the gym or outdoors. Really, what else is there to do in Oregon!
After graduating, Hideyuki Sagawa started working at the headquarters of Mitsubishi Electronic Company in Japan. He holds a sales position in the Factory Automation division.
Heather Thompson
came back to the United States for a visit this summer after living and working
in Auckland, New Zealand for the past year. She will be leaving again in July to
work abroad again, this time in Melbourne, Australia.
Lucy Boyadjian is contemplating whether or not to attend law school in the Fall or to take a year off. Meanwhile, she has been teaching computer classes for the Center to Increase Community Organization, which is located in Highland Park. She is relaxing this summer by visiting friends, camping, and being a beach bum.
Scott Arenstein is teaching English in Japan on the JET Program. He is stationed on the island of Yoron, 22km in circumference. Besides his teaching duties Scott spends his free time reorchestrating Wagner operas.
Paul Harper was recently hired as the Cash Coordinator/Lease Administrator at Investment Development Services, a commercial real estate company in downtown LA. Although he is still adjusting to the real world's 8-5 working schedule, Paul is looking forward to learning about the action-packed world of commercial real estate.
After traveling for a month in Europe and spending three weeks at home in Hawaii, Laura Kawano moved to Washington DC to begin her job with the Federal Reserve Board. She is working as a research assistant for the Monetary and Financial Studies Section in the Division for Research and Statistics.
Henrik Kühl reports that he's had a pleasant summer this far. After graduation he went to the East Coast, Europe, and Toronto, Canada, after which he returned to Los Angeles to move into his new place in Westwood and start his job as a Research Associate with Economic Analysis LLC, a consulting firm based in Century City that specializes in quality economic analysis for complex business litigation in areas such as antitrust and intellectual property. In July, he went to Tuscany, Italy for a family reunion and his father's 60th birthday.
Tim Ma is currently working as an intern at Hong Kong Intellectual Property Department. He is also applying for law schools in Hong Kong while trying hard to find a job in LA just in case he doesn't get into law school.
After returning from a fantastic post-graduation European excursion, Meghan McArdle began work as a revenue analyst for Overture Services in Pasadena. She has also been playing Rugby for the Oxy old-girls in her spare time and enjoying the wonderful California summer weekends. She plans to attend graduate school but is still deciding what she wants to pursue and when.
Erica Shinohara served as the Multicultural Summer Institute (MSI) Hall Coordinator during her last "free" summer and felt that it was the greatest way to end her Oxy career. Come September, she will be starting the Coro Fellows Program in Public Policy.
After having spent a wonderful summer in NYC, Purvi
Tank has moved to San Francisco. She is working as an investment banker
in the technology group at Banc of America Securities.
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